Westminster

Today we got another early start to our day. Our first stop was Westminster Abbey. A beautiful gothic church dating back more than 1000 years. By the time we got there, a line was already forming. We did not have tickets yet so we had to wait for a bit.

As we entered the church, we immediately lost our breath from the beauty and intricate details of the historic building. We bought our tickets and the attendant informed us that we were not allowed to take any photos/videos within the church. This was a pretty big bummer, but we appreciated the restriction as it allowed us to fully enjoy the experience. However, they do permit use of their own pictures for personal use, so I am including some below!

They also provided a free interactive audio tour, which was very interesting. We all just looked like nerds walking around with headphones. One interesting fact we learned was that over 3,300 people have been buried in the physical church. The most elaborate tombs were for past king/queens of Britain.

When the tour was over they directed us to the courtyard. Here we were allowed to take pictures. It looked like something out of Harry Potter.

When the tour ended we exited out of the front of the church. It was just as beautiful as the inside. We made sure to get some additional shots.

Our next move was to go check out Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately we had missed the changing of the guards ceremony, but we were okay with that because it was already crawling with 1000s of tourists. We got some great shots and moved on.

For lunch we stopped off at a place called “Eat”. It was a quick service restaurant that provided quality, fresh ingredients. We grabbed some pre-made sandwiches and headed to St. James park to enjoy lunch like the locals do.

After lunch we wanted to hit up a couple of museums because most of them are actually free. The first one was the Natural History museum. To us, the architecture of this building was far more interesting than the content itself. Katie made sure to get the absolute best pictures. Overall a great museum as they have everything from dinosaurs to earthquake simulations.

The next one was the British Museum. This massive museum is dedicated to the preservation of human history from all sorts of cultures. In fact, it is the world’s largest collection of Egyptian artifacts and antiquities. This includes the famous Rosetta Stone that was the key to deciphering the ancient hieroglyphs.

Our last stop was to check out Big Ben and House of Parliament. There wasn't much to see here though as Big Ben is under construction until 2020.

By the end of the day, our feet were sore and we were ready for an ice cold beer. So we hit up one of the nearby pubs for dinner.

We finally ended the night with happy hour at our hostel, and packed up for our trip to Paris tomorrow.